A Thousand Words
by Lizzie Weasley
Summary: A picture's worth a thousand words, but Ron's worth a billion more. Hermione learns this as she and Ron look back at pictures of their school life during the summer after their last year. Let's just say alot of new things are learned. RHr(obviously)


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(A/N) Hey guys. It's Lizzie again! Yay! Guess what? Today's my birthday! And again…Yay! I'm so psyched right now! I got a car!! Woo hoo!! It's gorgeous! Absolutely gorgeous! It's a silver 2001 Mitsubishi Mirage and it's absolutely beautiful. I think I'm in love. I even got my little dice hanging on my rear view mirror already. Well anywho I wrote this little fic out of inspiration I got the other night. Don't ask how because I don't know, it just popped into my mind all of a sudden. It should be pretty good, I guess. Well I guess that's all your opinion right? Ron's a little OOC but it's for a reason he gets that way. Don't worry the ickle Ronnie we know(and love) so well isn't destroyed. Infact he may be just a bit more serious yet very sweet at the same time. Aww our little boy's grown up on us. How cute. J Well read on and all I hope you like it.

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(Disclaimer) No, ickle Ronniekins doesn't belong to me. NOOO! Just for one day!!! Please!! After all it's my birthday and I wants it. (Smeagol on the LotR) If you don't get it whatever. Lol.

A Thousand Words

A sharp raping sounded from the door as Hermione sat alone in Ginny's lavender room. The poster of a famous wizarding singer winked back at her before the door swung open and Ginny Weasley came bounding inside looking quite cheerful.

"Hey, Hermione," she said her brown eyes seeming to smile as well. "You'll never believe what I've just found when I was looking in my trunk. It's a miracle I found it because-" Ginny's face looked shocked when she noticed Hermione's hard solemn expression and she took on a look of concern. "Hermione, what's wrong?"

Hermione brushed away a few stray tears with the back of her hand and attempted a false smile that worked none too well. "It's nothing Ginny. Just nothing."

Ginny didn't fall too hard for these untruthful pretences. Infact she almost seemed irritated that Hermione wouldn't tell the truth straight out.

"Hermione, _please_," Ginny sighed rolling her eyes irritably. " We may look alike, but I'm not Ron, incase you haven't noticed."

Hermione seemed to take note of these words but it didn't pursue the right effect; infact it only seemed to worsen the bad one for just then her lip began to tremble.

"Hermione, I'm sorry. You don't have to tell-" Ginny attempted at restoring Hermione's tears, but Hermione held up her hand.

"It's all right, Gin. You don't have to apologize." Hermione insisted shaking her head rapidly. "But really I'm alright now. I'm just getting a little, well, overemotional, I guess."

Ginny smiled knowing the feeling only all too well. Instead of getting worked up as well, she sat down beside Hermione on her own tattered bedspread and handed to her bushy haired friend what she had come up here for in the first place.

"Here," Ginny said slowly placing an old black leathered album of some sort into Hermione's lap. "It's for you."

Hermione looked from the album to Ginny and back again with a mingling sort of expression of confusion. It looked quite amusing to picture Hermione like this but it was even more so to see it before your eyes. Ginny even found it quite difficult not to laugh at seeing a very befuddled Hermione, a very rare treat indeed.

"What is this?" Hermione said softly caressing the cover.

"It's a photo album Colin Creevy started putting together for me in my second year, but he gave it to me before the break for my last birthday present. It's a bunch of pictures of you, Ron, and Harry at Hogwarts. Colin had given it to me as a gift when he realized I liked Harry so much, and I only just found it again today in the back of my trunk. I guess that, now, since I really don't need it, I thought you'd like to have it. I mean what good are pictures when you have the real thing right?"

Hermione continued to caress the cover of the album deep in obvious thought. Ginny bit her lip and looked down at her own hands clenched together in her lap.

"I guess it's a sort of 'leaving present'. You know, no more Hogwarts and stuff."

Hermione smiled wearily and looked up at Ginny with a saddened sort of look. "Thanks, Ginny. That was really sweet of you."

"You're welcome," Ginny whispered flashing a worried smile. She got up from the bed still keeping a worried eye on Hermione's back. Hermione tried her best to keep from looking back at her and she had to strain to keep the tears tight in her eyes.

Hermione heard the door close slowly behind Ginny as the tears finally found the courage to creep onto her cheeks. She quickly wiped them off with the back of her hand and focused back down on the black leather album still lying in her lap. There was something in her heart that told her it was best not to open it and just throw it back into the trunk until it wasn't so painful, but curiosity and a strange yearning got the best of her and she opened the cover.

The first picture stared up at her and it was then and there that the tears started to steadily pour. It was she, Harry, and Ron standing in front of the fat lady's portrait, Harry and Ron in their scarlet Quidditch robes. Ron had her in a headlock and Harry was attempting to jump onto Ron's back. She remembered that day like it was yesterday and god would she miss it so much.

Another knock on the door sounded and she figured it was only Ginny coming back again to maybe grab something she had forgotten. It wasn't however, she soon realized when the door banged open against the wall- only Ron opened it like that. Sure enough a second later his weight sank into the bed and she could barely see his vivid red hair out of the corner of her eye.

"Watcha doing?" he asked looking over her shoulder.

"Well Ron what does it look like?" Hermione laughed sitting up beside him. She tried her best not to look into his eyes scared he'd notice the red and start a rant. But he made it easier when he took the picture book from her and stared hard at it instead.

"You know it's funny," Ron started turning the book on his side to look at it from a different angle. "People always say, a picture's worth a thousand words but I've never heard a single word come from any of them. Not a single word."

Hermione rolled her eyes and forced a laugh even though she only felt like bawling her eyes out. How could he do that? How could he still be so funny even though she was positive the same thoughts were going through his mind as they were hers? He was just so amazing it was shocking. He was just everything she never was and always wished she could be.

"Ron, I swear sometimes you amaze me." Hermione sighed and flipped the page.

"Oh, I remember that day," Ron said in a sort of groan. "That was the day that Ginny and Harry had got together right? Yep, see my face."

It was quite funny. Ron's face looked strained and worried as Harry held onto Ginny's waist. He was continuously throwing them evil glances and Hermione was standing there her arms crossed rolling her eyes repeatedly.

"Yes, I c-can remember it t-too." Hermione gave a soft sniffle as new tears rolled down her cheeks. Why was she so emotional all of a sudden? Why could she wait until Ron was gone?

"Hermione?"

Oh no, he had caught sight of her eyes. Here it went the ranting and questioning and just the droning arguing all over again.

"It's nothing, Ron." Hermione said hurriedly as she turned her face away and steadily wiping tears that just kept coming. Why couldn't he just turn away?

"Well, I know I'm not the smartest of blokes but I'm pretty sure that I saw you crying just now."

"Look, Ron, I said it was nothing."

Hermione waited for it. Any second now he'd start ranting on about not telling him was wrong and make a big deal over how she could tell him what was wrong because… he wouldn't make a big deal over it. Yep any second now…

"Alright, you don't have to tell me."

Hermione's head jerked up. Had she just heard what she thought she just heard? Her ears must not have been working properly.

"What?" she whispered turning to him with the most befuddled looks she ever had come across her face.

"You-don't-have-to-tell-me," Ron stressed sarcastically. "I just thought you'd rather keep it too yourself."

Hermione eyed him suspiciously. "Are you serious? You don't want to hear it? You don't want to bug it out of me and go on ranting and raving over how stupid I'm being?"

"Hermione when have I ever?" Ron said innocently with a hurt hand over his heart.

Hermione glared.

"Well?"

Hermione just sighed irritably and turned away. "The train ride home, Ron. Head Boy and Girl compartment. You were bugging me over why I looked so sad. Remember?"

"Oh." Ron said and looked up at the ceiling intently.

"But it's nothing anyway so it doesn't really matter."

Ron looked on the verge of blowing up with anticipation. He must have been holding in the urge to ask her now. Hermione bit her lip and looked at him carefully. Maybe telling him wouldn't be so bad after all. Maybe he could relate to her, after all he was her best friend.

"Ron," she started and stared intently at her fingers entwined in her lap. "Do you ever think about Hogwarts anymore, about going back and all the people we'll never see again?"

Ron laughed and looked over at her with his twinkling blue eyes. "Is that what this is all about? Hogwarts?"

Hermione decided not to look up at him this time. She could already picture the smirk across his lip; she didn't need to see it before her eyes. Her face was already burning she could feel the heat in her cheeks. Why had she thought Ron would be serious about this? Why hadn't she just talked with Harry?

"All the time."

"Y-you do?" Hermione stammered and finally worked up the courage to look up at him. He wasn't smirking as she had pictured. Instead, there was a smile, not a smirking one, but one of comfort and knowing. And his eyes, those beautiful ocean blue eyes, were sending waves into her heart like she had never felt before; this was a side of Ron she had never known, one she had only seen in a few chosen moments in the past. It was the side of Ron that only came out when he really meant what he was saying, the side of Ron that Hermione loved with all her heart, the side that was always there for her when she needed it most from him.

"I know how you feel about all of this, going away for our last year, never going back, losing all the friends that we used to have, knowing we might never be together again…ever." Ron looked down at his feet and Hermione had the strange feeling that he was on the verge of tears. She had never seen him cry, not in the seven years that she had known him had he shed a tear in front of her. And now as they sat together on his little sister's bed, he was close to crying out his feelings to her.

"I look down at these pictures," he continued. "And I see all that we used to be and I know we can never go back. And I just think that, everything that I loved, everything I've ever known to care for, it's all gone now. I can never go back again.

And I look at Harry and I look at you and think of all the times we've shared, all the times bad and good we overcame and I know we might never be together again. After all that time…"

"And I'm glad I spent them with you, Ron. I wouldn't have had it any other way." Hermione said as light tears flowed down her cheeks. She looked up at his eyes and saw a few stray tears in his eyes as well. "After all the arguing and fighting we always had I'd never change a moment of it."

Ron tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear and rubbed her cheek with his thumb. "I wouldn't either, Hermione. I wouldn't either. Even if I had the chance to turn back time and change the past, I wouldn't do it. I don't know how I can make it better than to share it with Harry and…you."

Hermione wiped away a tear that clung to his cheeks. She never thought she'd see him this way before and here she was.

"You've never talked with me like this before, Ron." Hermione said looking into his eyes that resembled now more than ever the deep blue ocean she always loved. "Why not?"

He smiled that gorgeous Weasley smile and placed his hand gently on her cheek. "You never gave me a chance to."

Hermione heart sunk and she realized it could go no lower. Ron eyes, that smile, his breath so near to her now, it was all too much. But she could handle it. She was strong. She was a big girl who never acted irrational. She could control herself…

…She was also very bad at self-assurance.

The next second, before she could get a grip on herself she did something she'd would have so regretted had she still been a simple school girl of Hogwarts school. But she wasn't that little girl anymore and Ron wasn't a boy. He had proved that to her in more ways than one. And now that she knew that she could handle the truth she admitted it to herself, she was in love with her best friend and wasn't scared to show it.

Ron didn't open his eyes when they broke apart. He sat there with his eyes tightly shut refusing to open them point blank.

"Did that just happen?" he asked his eye still shut. "Please tell me that just happened."

Hermione bit her lip hoping his reaction wasn't going to be how she expected.

"It did. I'm sorry."

Ron opened his eyes slowly and looked into hers. Then without warning a smile spread across his lips. "Why be sorry?"

Why hadn't she expected anymore than that? Hadn't he just proved her opinion about him wrong all along?

Hermione started to laugh realizing for the first time this day that some things didn't always go away. Some things were permanently there and were refusing to go away no matter what. Something you just couldn't loose no matter if you wanted it to or not. Not all things were like Hogwarts and normal people who come and go in life. Some people were true friends who'd never leave your side no matter what happened. People like Harry. People like Ginny. And then there were the one's who are your true loves, those you can never stop thinking of and know they'll never let you down. Those who can always make you feel loved and are everything you want to be. Yes, those wonderful people like Ron.

Ron's eyes fluttered back to the picture book and placed it in her lap. He turned the pages until he found the one he was looking for. It was another picture of Harry, Ginny, him, and herself. But funny enough on this picture Ron looked more relaxed about Harry and Ginny's touching. Then Hermione noticed the reason his gazed wasn't transfixed on his baby sister any longer. The Ron in the photo was looking down at Hermione in total adoration as she smiled back up at him.

Ron took her hand and gazed into her eyes lovingly. "Well, Hermione. I guess they were right. Maybe a picture is worth a thousand words."

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(A/N) Well I liked it so whatever. If you don't well what the hell, don't read anymore of my fics then. ;) Lol. I'm so tired right now. BTW guys I won't be posting anything for a while from now. I'm trying to start this new fic and I'm working solely on the that for the time being. I'm trying to get it to be as good as possible and writing short stories/one shots are getting in the way and stuff. It's planning on being a R/H H/G its not really more of either pairing it's a lot of both. I posted a summary at the bottom if you wanna check it out. Thanks again guys.

Love from Lizzie

(Summary) I'm not sure what to call it it'll either be 'Bottled Up Emotions' or 'A Whole New Light'. Cast a vote please in your review.

Another summer at the Burrow. Sounds pretty normal right? Well when is anything normal in the wizarding world? Besides that means there will be four hormonally crazy teenagers locked in one house all summer having to deal with their out-of-whack emotions, new pains, jealousy, insecurity, and even love. Read on as Harry finds comfort in the person he always thought to be just another girl. Ron finds hidden feelings bundled up inside of him when an unexpected visitor shows his face. Hermione fights to deny the thing she's dreaded since first year (and fails horribly). And Ginny finds a way to squeeze into ruckus that was always surrounding the trio since day one. For some strange reason I'm beginning to think this may be the start of a very interesting summer.


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